(October 2016)

Guide to Courses (Syllabus) 20162017 The Philosophy Tripos

Philosophy is the study of problems that are ultimate and general and which concern amongst
other things the nature of human knowledge, the mind, language and value. University
courses in philosophy lay special emphasis on precise and careful argument. In the earlier
stages of the Cambridge course the central elements are metaphysics and the philosophy of
mind, ethics and political philosophy, and logic. Later stages also cover the history of
philosophy, philosophy of science and aesthetics. As the course proceeds the number of
optional elements increases, so that in Part II there are no compulsory subjects.
The Tripos consists of three separate Parts, and it is possible for students to read the subject
for one, two, or three years, and also either before or after reading another subject. It is not
necessary for students to have done any work in philosophy before reading the subject at
Cambridge and Part IA of the Tripos is taught on the assumption that they have not. Any
combination of Arts and Science A levels is acceptable.
Part IA introduces the fundamental topics of metaphysics and philosophy of mind, ethics and
political philosophy, and logic, together with detailed work on prescribed texts.
Part IB contains further study of metaphysics and logic. Candidates also take two further
papers from a list comprising experimental psychology, ethics, Greek and Roman philosophy,
early modern philosophy, philosophy of science, and political philosophy.
In Part II, the subjects covered are metaphysics, philosophy of mind, ethics, European
philosophy from Kant, philosophy in the long Middle Ages, philosophy of science,
mathematical logic, philosophical logic, political philosophy, aesthetics, and Wittgenstein.
Each part of the Tripos also contains a general paper.
Please note that the Faculty does not undertake to lecture on every topic listed on the
syllabus.
Change to philosophy after studying another subject
All students changing in to any part of the Philosophy Tripos are examined on the same
number of papers per year as students who take the three year Philosophy Course, i.e. all
students are examined in 4 areas of philosophy plus the General Paper, a total of 5 papers.
(1) Students who change to philosophy within their first year may take Part IA at the end of
their first year.
(2) Students who change to philosophy at the end of their first year may attempt Part IB in
one year. Alternatively, students who change to philosophy at the end of their first year may
attempt Part II in two years.
(3) Students who change to philosophy at the end of their second year, after gaining
honours in their previous subject, may
(a) attempt Part IB in one year
(b) attempt Part II in one year
(c) attempt Part II in two years.
(4) A candidate who has previously taken any of Part IB of the Natural Sciences Tripos,
Part II of the Classical Tripos or Part IIB of the Divinity Tripos may not offer any paper that he
or she offered in that examination.
(5) Since 2013 it is no longer possible for candidates to get a BA after taking Part IB
in their third and final year.

Affiliated students
Affiliated students normally take Part II over two years. In their first year they may take
Part IB, and they must take Part II in their second year.
Parts IA, IB, and II of the Tripos
Details of the topics prescribed for the various papers in Parts IA, IB, and II of the Tripos are
given below. Although students are not expected to have studied any philosophy before
embarking on the Tripos, it is certainly useful for them to have read some books on the
subject first, if only to enable them to get a better idea of what their work will be like. Any of
the books in the following list, can be recommended:
R. Descartes, Meditations; G. Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge; D. Hume, An
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding; J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism; B. Russell, The Problems
of Philosophy; A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic; B. Williams, Morality; T. Nagel, What
Does It All Mean?; S.W. Blackburn, Think; S.W. Blackburn, Being Good; E.J. Craig,
Philosophy: A very short introduction.

Tripos Examinations (all parts of the Philosophy Tripos)

The Tripos Examination aims to test the breadth as well as the depth of candidates'
knowledge. Accordingly candidates should in general not receive additional credit for
recycled material.
Obviously this rule cannot be completely hard and fast. For instance, an argument that is well
known in one area of the subject certainly merits credit when reused in some novel and
interesting connection. However the rule does apply if in the examiners' judgement a
candidate is using essentially the same content to make essentially the same point.
The intention is also that the rule be applied proportionately. Clearly then the reuse of, say, a
few sentences cannot invalidate the answer where they reappear. And it is also acceptable
for a student to report in one essay a point or argument from another, as a premise for then
continuing and expanding on that idea. Examiners are asked (as always) to use their
judgement, to ensure that withholding of marks only applies to cases of substantial recycling.

Part IA
Part IA may be taken only at the end of a student's first year as an undergraduate. All the
following papers must be taken.
1. Metaphysics
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.

God: existence of; the problem of evil; miracles.

Causation.
Free will.
Mind and matter
Identity: persons and other objects

2. Ethics and political philosophy

Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.

Metaethics; fact and value, objectivity and subjectivity

Normative ethics, consequentalism, deontology, virtue ethics

Moral psychology, egoism and altruism; empathy; cognitive and affective attitudes
Political obligation and authority: classical and social contract theory; natural duty and
fair play theory; anarchism
Equality of opportunity: varieties of equality of opportunity; justifications and controversy;
positive discrimination

3. Logic
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least eight set, including at least
one from each section.
Section A: Formal Logic

Basic concepts: formalised languages; object-language and metalanguage; use and

mention; validity, implication and consistency.
Truth-functional logic: truth-functions, tautologies, proof.
Introduction to first-order logic: the language of quantifiers and variables; validity and
counterexamples; elements of the logic of identity.
Classes and relations.
Elements of probability calculus.

Section B: Philosophical logic

Problems of translation between natural and formal languages.

Names, variables and descriptions; referential and substitutional readings of the
quantifiers.
Necessity, analyticity and the a priori.
Meaning, intention and conventions.

4. Set texts
The paper will be divided into three sections, one on each of the set authors. Candidates are
asked to answer three questions out of at least twelve set, which must be chosen from at
least two sections.
Plato, Meno (lectures provided by the Faculty of Classics).
Descartes, Meditations on first philosophy.
J. S. Mill, On Liberty and The Subjection of Women.
5. General Paper
Candidates are asked to write a philosophical essay on one of at least twelve questions set.

Part IB.
Candidates must take Part IB Papers 1, 2, and 9 and two other papers. Students taking Paper
8, Experimental Psychology, are exempt from taking the General Paper, Paper 9. (For
candidates who have not done Part IA Philosophy, please see section 'Change to philosophy
after studying another subject'.)
Essays
In place of any one of Papers 13 and 57 a candidate may submit two essays, each of not
less than 3,000 words and not more than 4,000 words in length, including footnotes and
appendices but excluding bibliography, on two topics proposed by the candidate and
approved by the Chair of Examiners, which shall both fall within the syllabus of that paper,
provided that a candidate who chooses to submit essays may not write in the General Paper,
Paper 9 an essay on a subject that overlaps significantly with either of the submitted essays.
A candidate who chooses to offer two essays must submit the proposed titles of the essays,
together with a statement of which paper they are intended to replace, and the papers that he

or she intends to offer in the examination, to the Faculty Office not later than two weeks
before the end of Michaelmas Full Term. The Faculty Office passes these titles on to the
Chair of Examiners for approval. The titles must be approved by the Chair of Examiners not
later than the last day of Michaelmas Full Term.
Candidates must submit the essays to the Faculty Office so as to reach it not later than the
last day of the Lent Term immediately preceding the examination. Each pair of essays must
bear the examination number but not the candidate's name. The Faculty systematically uses
text-matching software (currently "Turnitin") to screen all submitted work from students for
possible plagiarism. The Examiners have power to examine a candidate viva voce on the
essays.
The papers in Part IB are:
1. Metaphysics and epistemology
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.

Mind-dependence: primary and secondary qualities; idealism

Metaphysics of modality: modal realism and alternatives
The nature of knowledge: externalism and internalism; theories of warrant and
justification
Scepticism: the problem of scepticism and responses
Sources of knowledge: evidence; perception; a priori knowledge; testimony; induction

2. Logic
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.

Theories of meaning: compositionality of meaning; verificationism.

Truth: semantic, redundancy, correspondence and coherence theories of truth.
Logical form: the purposes of formalisation; logical form and theories of meaning.
Names and descriptions: sense and reference; Russell's theory of descriptions; causal
theory of names; identity.
Variants of classical logic: elements of modal logic; intuitionistic logic.
Theories: the axiomatic method; informal and formal theories; examples.
Metatheory of propositional calculus: the method of proof by induction; normal form;
expressive adequacy; soundness and completeness.

3. Ethics
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.

Helping and harming; beneficence I: demands; beneficence II: aggregation; normative

powers I: consent, normative powers II: promise; contractualism
Early modern moral philosophy: natural law; rationalism; sentimentalism
Moral psychology: moral motivation, virtues, vices, moral learning, practical reasoning

4. Greek and Roman philosophy (Paper 8 of Part IB of the Classical Tripos).

Examination by three hour set examination.
5.Early Modern philosophy
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least twelve set.

Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics and Monadology and New Essays on Human

Understanding.
Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding Books I & II.
Berkeley, The Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues between Hylas and
Philonous.

Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I and Appendix.

Some comparative questions may be set.

6. Philosophy of science
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.

Realism, for and against: underdetermination of theory by data; the pessimistic

induction; constructive empiricism; structural realism, incommensurability.
Confirmation: the hypothetico-deductive model; the paradoxes of confirmation;
Bayesianism; falsificationism.
Scientific explanation and laws: what, if anything, distinguishes scientific explanation?;
the deductive-nomological model of explanation and its rivals; 'best system' vs antireductionist views of laws.
Concepts of probability: subjective probability; logical probability; frequency
interpretation; propensity interpretation.
Introduction to Philosophy of physics: spacetime and relativity; time and
thermodynamics; puzzles of quantum theory.

7. Political philosophy
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.

Democracy: justifications of democracy; forms of democracy.

Equality: egalitarianism; labour, property and theft; the value of equality
Liberty: classical theories of liberty; contemporary theories of liberty

8. Experimental psychology
(The subject Experimental Psychology in Part IB of the Natural Sciences Tripos, for which the
examination consists of two papers.) Students taking this paper are exempt from taking the
General Paper, Paper 9. Paper 8 is worth 40% of the total marks, and each of the remaining
three papers 20%.
9. General Paper
Candidates are asked to write a philosophical essay on one of at least sixteen questions set.

Part II
Candidates must take four Part II papers from among Papers 111 and the papers borrowed
from other Triposes. All candidates must offer either Paper 12 (General Paper) or a
Dissertation in lieu of Paper 12.
Part II may be taken in one year after Part IB of the Philosophy Tripos or in two years or one
after any other Honours Examination except Part IA of the Philosophy Tripos. For candidates
who have not done Part IB Philosophy, please see section Change to Philosophy after
studying another subject.

Dissertation
A candidate for Part II has the option of offering a dissertation in place of Paper 12 on a topic
of philosophical interest proposed by him or herself and approved by the Chair of Examiners.
A dissertation must be of not more than 8,000 words and (except with the permission of the
Chair of Examiners) not less than 6,000 words in length, including footnotes and appendices
but excluding bibliography.

Essays
In place of any one of Papers 111, and the papers borrowed from the Classical Tripos, a
candidate may submit two essays, each of not less than 3,000 words and not more than
4,000 words in length, including footnotes and appendices but excluding bibliography, on two
topics proposed by him or herself and approved by the Chair of Examiners, which shall both
fall within the syllabus of that paper, provided that
i)
a candidate who chooses to submit essays may not write in the General Paper,
Paper 12 an essay on a subject that overlaps significantly with either of his or her
submitted essays,
and that
ii) a candidate who chooses to submit essays may not write in place of the General
Paper, Paper 12 a dissertation on a subject that overlaps significantly with either of his
or her submitted essays.
Dissertations and Essays: General rules
A candidate may submit both a dissertation in place of the General Paper (Paper 12) AND
extended essays in lieu of a subject paper, and thus have the option of submitting 40%
coursework.
A candidate who chooses to offer a dissertation and/or two essays must submit the proposed
title of the dissertation and/or the proposed titles of the essays, together with a statement of
the Papers that he or she intends to offer in the examination, and in the case of essays a
statement of the Paper that they are intended to replace, to the Faculty Office not later than
two weeks before the end of Michaelmas Full Term. The Faculty Office passes these titles on
to the Chair of Examiners for approval. These titles must be approved by the Chair of
Examiners not later than the last day of Michaelmas Full Term.
Candidates must submit extended essays to the Faculty Office so as to reach it not later than
the last day of the Lent Term immediately preceding the examination. Dissertations must be
submitted so as to reach the Faculty Office not later than the second Friday of the Easter
Term. Each dissertation or pair of essays must bear the examination number but not the
candidate's name. The Faculty systematically uses text-matching software (currently
"Turnitin") to screen all submitted work from students for possible plagiarism. The Examiners
will have power to examine a candidate viva voce on the dissertation or the essays.
The papers in Part II are:
1. Metaphysics
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.

Realism and idealism: varieties of realism; conceptual schemes; transcendental

arguments
Particulars and properties: the contrast of particular and universal, and of abstract and
concrete, realism about universals and alternatives.
Causation: causation and agency; realism about causation, for and against; direction of
causation
Time: dynamic versus block conceptions; the direction of time; the existence and
persistence of entities in time
Persons: their persistence and unity; animalism and alternatives

2. Philosophy of mind
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.

Metaphysics of mind: physicalism and alternatives; mental causation

Epistemology of mind: knowledge of ones own mind; knowledge of other minds
Consciousness: varieties of consciousness; intentional theories of consciousness; the
explanatory gap
Intentionality and mental representation: the nature of intentionality; intentional objects;
reductive theories of content; externalism and internalism
Mental faculties: intention and the will; emotion; imagination

3. Ethics
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.

Theories of the good: Sidgwicks method of ethics, goodness and axiology, well-being
Metaethics: realism; metaphysical foundations of ethics, moral epistemology
Kants ethics and Kantian ethics: the categorical imperative, duty and motive, morality
and freedom, autonomy
Topics in moral psychology: trust, ethics of knowing, responsibility

4. European philosophy from Kant

Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.

Kant, Critique of Pure Reason to the end of the Transcendental Dialectic (A704, B732).
Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, Introduction, Consciousness, Self-consciousness
(paragraphs 73-230); Hegel's Logic: being part of the Encyclopaedia of the
Philosophical Sciences, paragraphs 1-111; Introduction to Lectures on the Philosophy of
History, as far as (but not including) The Geographical Basis of World History;
Introduction to the Philosophy of Right, paragraphs 1-40, 104-114, 141-157 and 257259
Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, The Birth of Tragedy, Beyond Good and Evil.

5. Philosophy in the Long Middle Ages

This paper covers philosophy in the period from c. 400 to c. 1700, in the Latin, Arabic and
Hebrew traditions. All texts are studied in translation. For 2015 - 2016, the two set themes will
be (a) Universals and (b) Scientific Truth and Revelation. The examination will consist of
fifteen questions on the set texts below. Of these, two will be commentary questions, one on
an extract from each of the two asterisked texts under Theme 1, the other one on extract from
each of the two asterisked texts under Theme 2. Candidates must answer three questions,
including one or both of the commentary questions. They may answer essay questions
using texts on which they have commented in a commentary question, so long as any
substantial repetition of material is avoided.
Theme 1: Thinking and the Self
*1. Avicenna: On the Soul from Al-Najat; the 'Flying Man' argument in its different versions
2. Averroes: Long Commentary on Aristotles De Anima , extracts from Book III
*3. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, qq. 85-89
4. Gersonides: Wars of the Lord Book I (perhaps with some chapters cut to make it more
manageable)
5. Descartes, Meditations II and VI, with the Objections and Replies to those parts.
6. Spinoza, Ethics, Part II and Part V

Theme 2: Scientific Truth and Revelation

1. Averroes Decisive Treatise
2. Maimonides Guide of the Perplexed, II 15-27
*3. Boethius of Dacia On the Eternity of the World
4. Peter Abelard, Collationes Collatio II (The Dialogue between a Philosopher, a Jew and a
Christian)
5. Pietro Pomponazzi On the Immortality of the Soul
6. Spinoza Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
6. Philosophy of Science
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.

Philosophy of Physics I:.the metaphysics of space and space-time: absolute and

relational theories of space and space-time; geometry and conventionalism.
Philosophy of Physics II: the interpretation of quantum mechanics; non-locality.
Philosophy of Biology: biological kinds, the nature of species; biological laws; functional
and causal explanation in biology.
Philosophy of Social Science: social science versus natural science; rational choice
theory and social science; social ontology.
Special topic (2016-17): Philosophy of cognitive science: folk psychology; eliminative
materialism; explanation in psychology and neuroscience; embodied and extended
cognition.

7. Mathematical logic
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.

First and second order logic: completeness, compactness, conservativeness,

expressive power, and Lwenheim-Skolem theorems.
First and second order theories: categoricity, non-standard models of arithmetic.
Set theory: embedding mathematics in set theory, the cumulative iterative hierarchy,
elements of cardinal and ordinal arithmetic, the axiom of choice.
Recursive functions and computability: decidability, axiomatizability, Church's thesis,
Gdel's incompleteness theorems, Hilbert's programme.

8. Philosophical logic
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.
Philosophy of language:

Understanding and truth-conditions; realism and anti-realism.

Indeterminacy of meaning; rule-following.

Topics in logic:

Conditionals.

The logic of plurals

The nature of logic and mathematics:

Logic: analytic versus empirical.

Conventionalism about logic and mathematics.

Logicism: traditional and contemporary.

Intuitionism: traditional and contemporary.

Structuralism and fictionalism.

9. Wittgenstein
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.

Tractatus

Philosophical Investigations
On Certainty
Study of the following topics is also included: the development throughout Wittgenstein's
work of his views on solipsism and the self, and the nature of philosophy.

10. Political philosophy

Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.

Global political issues: immigration; international justice, nationalism and

cosmopolitanism, global environment
Community and culture: political liberalism; communitarianism; multiculturalism
Feminism: economic justice and gender; the ethics of care; gender and
difference/intersectionality; pornography; rape; masculinity and femininity.
Radical political theory; Marxism, Power, Realism vs moralism/ideal and non-ideal
theory; moral limits of markets

11. Aesthetics
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.
Thematic: Aesthetic experience; realism and anti-realism; imagination and originality; art
and morality; the nature of art and ontology of art; understanding, interpretation and
criticism; representation, expression.
Set texts: Plato, Ion, Symposium, and Republic (Books II, III, X).
Hume, 'On the Standard of Taste' in Essays, Moral, Political and Literary.

12. General Paper

Candidates are asked to write a philosophical essay on one of at least twenty questions set.

PAPERS FROM OTHER TRIPOSES THAT MAY BE TAKEN IN PART II

As well as the papers listed for Part II above, Part II students may also take a maximum of
two papers from the following:
Classical Tripos:

B1
B2
B3

Plato
Aristotles world, from turtles to tragedies
A prescribed subject or period in Greek and Roman philosophy.
In 2016 2017: Reason and Reasoning

Divinity Tripos:

C11

Metaphysics (Examination by three hour set examination)

10